Healing WordArt

Nature Porn - while artists can create wonderful and imaginative pieces there is nothing that compares with the awesome originality of mother nature.  On a recent holiday I went hiking with my family in the mountains. The day was overcast and the mountains were covered in mist.  A morning shower, often referred to as 'morning glory' by the old timers, had left the forest floor sprinkled with sparkling rain drops and the leaves on the trees looking  green and refreshed.  Of course this made climbing fairly hazzardes as the terrain was steep and rocky under foot. But being intrepid adventurers we persevered and made it to the top where we shared a light lunch after appreciating the amazing 360 degree view of the surrounding countryside. I collected an assortment of leaves and berries and flowers on the descent.  As you can see there were all the different shapes, colours and textures that you could imagine on offer. A veritable smorgasbord on offer to th...

“When grief and trauma are not attended to with awareness and compassion in one generation, the deleterious effects of that trauma and grief cascade through the family tree, creating a domino effect of dysfunction. ”                                                                                                                 -   Karthleen Curzie Gajdos   On Monday evening, this week, I had the privilege of attending a NAIDOC week dinner with a group of indigenous students and their parents. NAIDOC is the acronym for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee . Its origins can be traced to the emergence of Aboriginal groups in the 1920′s which sought to increase awareness in...

Language is the way we human communicate with each other and consists of the use of words in a structured way, and often unique to a particular country or community.   The Oxford English dictionary has about 220,000 words. In the Oxford 'Shorter' Dictionary there are 163,000 different words, The Oxford Reference dictionary has 115,000 different words (200,000 meanings) and The Oxford English mini-dictionary has 40,000 different words (50,000 meanings). So there are thousands of different words, some nouns, some verbs and some adverbs and adjectives.   So what does this all have to do with a grieving parent?   Well you might ask! I recently came across an article where a bereaved parent who wished there was a term like orphan, widow or widower to describe her status. She further stated that while the death of a child is too awful to contemplate it happens every day to countless parents who are get no comfort from the denial of their loss. With suicide at...

Birthday celebrations in my family are usually a low-key affair.   In fact, I don’t think I have ever even had a birthday party – not even as a child. Being one of seven children, you can probably understand why that might have been the case.   On the other hand, my aging mother has had several big birthday parties including one at 60, 70 and 80 years of age.   If she lives to be 90, she will probably have one of those too.   My older sister is following in her footsteps and her husband has given her a 40 th , 50 th and 60 th to date.   In some ways I am disappointed none of my children have ever wanted to have either an 18 th or 21 st birthday party.   I would have loved to made it a special occasion for them. 13 April Dilemma – Sebastian’s Party/Nick’s Birthday Earlier this year my nephew turned 21 years of age. He is in the Australian Armed Forces and had his first posting to Iraq late last year.   Since he has been back in Austral...